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Life

Parkour and ninja rise in popularity

Two similar, young sports gain legitimacy with gyms and TV shows

John Maul conquers the warped wall at his gym

Kyle Harding

John Maul navigates the cliffhanger at his gym, Ninja Intensity in Castle Rock

Parkour has its roots in 1980s France, and its founding is most often credited to David Belle, who created the sport with inspiration from his father, Raymond Belle, who developed a passion for running obstacle courses, or “parcours du combatant,” while growing up in a military orphanage in French-occupied Vietnam.

David Belle and a group of his friends used their skills to conquer improvised obstacles in urban areas.

The sport of ninja is much more recent, springing from the Japanese competition TV series “Sasuke” and its American spinoff “American Ninja Warrior.”

Though many skills from parkour apply to ninja, they differ in that the latter is an organized, competitive event on a closed course.

arkour came into Mark D’Agosta’s life the way many people find their passions in the 21 century — YouTube.

“I was already doing this stuff,” he said. “There just wasn’t any sort of training or name for it.”

By “this stuff,” D’Agosta, 32, means parkour, a loosely-defined physical training discipline in which participants essentially create obstacle courses from the environment around them that was developed in France in the 1980s.

“I was climbing on buildings, getting on roofs and stuff when I was a kid,” said the Englewood resident.

In 2009, his sister saw the videos of the sport that had become popular online.

“She was like, `Hey, look, there are people who do the stuff you do — but they’re good at it,’ ” he said.

Parkour has moved indoors in recent years, first being incorporated into gymnastics programs. As popularity has grown, dedicated parkour gyms have sprung up, and a new offshoot, “ninja training,” has evolved. Ninja, as seen on the televised American Ninja Warrior competition and others like it, has competitors running defined obstacle courses against one another, distinguishing it from parkour.

“Parkour is pure imagination,” said John Maul, who co-owns Ninja Intensity gym in Castle Rock with Brandi and Ryan Lebsack.

Ninja Intensity offers classes in parkour and ninja, mainly geared towards kids. The Lebsacks decided to open the gym after their son, Kaden, found a passion for it. Their classes have steadily increased in size since they opened in December and they plan to offer camps this summer.

D’Agosta has coached parkour, along with gymnastics, in gyms but prefers outdoors, finding areas downtown where one can find walls, fountains or other infrastructure that can be turned into obstacles without trespassing.

“For me,” he said, “parkour is about your environment.”

D’Agosta founded the parkour club at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton, where he recently graduated. This past semester, he had about 10 consistent club members. The most he has had in a semester was 50, split between ACC students and community members.

Ninja training is mostly done in the gym, and practitioners are in the midst of trying to legitimize it as a sport, with organized leagues like the National Ninja League popping up.

“I see it branching away from the reality show aspect,” Maul said.

Lorin Ball, an American Ninja Warrior competitor, owns Ninja Brand Parkour Gym in Henderson, about 15 miles north of Denver along I-76Although most of his students are kids, he said, the sports of ninja and parkour appeal to teens, young adults and even older adults looking to try something new.

“They need more,” he said. “They need something where they can apply the exercise they’ve done.”

Maul came to the budding sport not long ago, with most of his fitness background being in powerlifting. Many of the adults starting ninja are also Crossfit athletes, weightlifters, runners or rockclimbers, Ball said.

For kids, Ball says parkour and ninja are ways to “get off of the video games and be the video game.”

However, D’Agosta said those were mainly in his early years in the sport, when he had less understanding of how to train safely. His past injuries have influenced him to pursue a career in physical therapy.

People will drive a long way to train in parkour or ninja. Before opening the gym, the Lebsacks were driving Kaden to Longmont to work out. Brandi said Ninja Intensity has members from as far away as Colorado Springs.

After four years of coaching, Ball doesn’t see an end to the popularity.